


Chasing Shadows

by palateens



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: BPD Nursey, Borderline Personality Disorder, Existential Angst, F/M, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Smoking, no chill duo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-26
Updated: 2017-05-26
Packaged: 2018-11-05 06:50:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11008194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/palateens/pseuds/palateens
Summary: Lardo clenches her fist a few times. “It’s ok to miss people, Nurse. Even if you know where to find them. It’s ok to not like how things change.”OrSometimes you've just gotta say fuck it.





	Chasing Shadows

**Author's Note:**

> Originally prompted on Tumblr:   
> Unbreakable Kiss - The type of kiss that really shouldn’t be happening, it’s a mistake, but you just can’t find yourself able to pull away.

It’s May. The gentle breeze rustles the trees outside the Haus gently. They scratch against each other as soft as the ocean nips at a sandy shore. Nursey lies back against his chair in the reading room. He sighs, taking another puff of his hookah pen. It isn’t as good as getting high, but it’s better than nothing. Just the feeling of having something in his mouth, of total control over something as ephemeral as smoke, makes him feel like he has a fucking grip on his life.

Ransom, Lardo, and Holster are graduating in three days. They’ll walk across a stage, bearing grins and tassels to the world. They’ll head out and be off to their adult lives. Sure, they’ll all be in Boston. It should be comforting to Derek, knowing they’ll be a short train ride away. Unfortunately, from high school and even before that (from years of people flitting in and out of his life promising to keep in touch but never following through), he knows this is the beginning of the end. The middle of the end will be over the summer when texts and snaps become few and far between. Some texts in the group chat will pop up around C’s birthday and Dex’s. They’ll probably remember his because Valentine’s day is so fucking recognizable. But that will be the last time he hears from any of them.

Derek takes another inhale of his pen—sucking in so much that it lets him make proper smoke rings. It wastes a lot of the pen just trying that. But at five a pop, four of them stashed away, and with a six pack to get through tonight, he doesn’t find it in himself to care. This will have to do. As with everything in his shitty life, it would just have to do.

He shakes his head, admonishing himself for thinking like that. Finals were rough, but he managed like always. He couldn’t say much for sociology class he kept skipping. He did the readings and showed up to every exam. At some point, he wasn’t sure if it was that he couldn’t stand the professor’s condescending rhetoric or if he was just struggling more than usual. Just as well, he passed. He had all summer to stick around the Haus. He could get a new routine with his part time job, go back to his therapist…he could make it work.

Just like he told himself last week and the week before—he’s done this before, he can do it again.

The sky is dim, but Derek can make out the light pollution from Boston in the distance. Sometimes he thinks about getting out of there. About taking a plane as far as he can go within the United States. He thinks he’d end up in Hawaii or Guam or somewhere tropical where he wouldn’t be the only brown guy for miles around. He knows he doesn’t deal well with change. Sure, he’s a social chameleon. He can be anything that anyone could ever hope out of him. That doesn’t mean he hasn’t spent the last month wondering how he’s going to finish school or wondering if the team’s going to be alright without the glue that held them together.

He wonders if legacies are like building houses: piling one generation on top of the other until you don’t recognize the foundation. You just assume that’s the way things have always been. Some shitty Sugar Ray cover comes drifting from the lacrosse house. Nursey snickers, wondering bitterly if nostalgia’s all that they have going for them. His laughter fades into a deep sigh.

There’s a knock on the window behind him. Derek turns around, finding Lardo smirking.

“Mind if I join you?”

“Nah, go for it.” He gestures her to come out.

She takes the seat next to him, holding her hand out for his pen. Lardo takes two puffs, letting the smoke ebb out of her mouth and back in through her nose.

He whistles appreciatively. “Impressive.”

“Did I ever tell you about my friend Dalja?”

Nursey shakes his head.

“She was my best friend growing up,” Larissa explains. “We met back in St. Louis. Anyway, I didn’t want to drink or smoke in high school. She couldn’t because she’s Muslim. We became friends because our parents didn’t approve of anyone else we hung out with.”

“Yea?”

“It worked out. We had a lot in common. She was cool, and her brother would set up his hookah for us.”

“Damn, Lards,” he smirks. “I thought you knew better than to smoke tobacco.”

She quirks a brow at his chirping. “Yea, well. Hookah doesn’t hook you the same way a cigarette does.”

He shakes his head. “Bullshit.”

Lardo shrugs, taking another inhale before passing the pen back to him. “Second hand smoke doesn’t bother me anymore…Sometimes, I like it.”

They sit there for a while, only the sound of the lax bros getting turnt to disrupt their quiet companionship. This is who they were. Two people who could enjoy everything and nothing together. Derek doesn’t know who he’d be without Larissa there. She was that extra support he needed to get out of bed some mornings. Her smile and encouragement whenever he did anything took weight off him to be something. She never kicked him out or made him go to class if he just couldn’t. She was the hand that slipped in between his whenever he needed to remember that he was real, that he was worth more than what he told himself. Maybe she was the reason he was having such a hard time moving on; knowing that things would never be the same between them was suffocating.

“I can’t tell if that’s because I’m hooked or I just miss Dalja.” She says finally.

Nursey looks over at her hunched form. “What happened to her?”

“She goes to Northeastern,” her tone is as grave as someone reading an obituary. “I saw her three weeks ago. We caught up.”

“So…it’s not like you lost touch,” Derek concludes.

“I think,” Larissa rasps. “I think you can lose touch with anyone. Even if they’re sitting right next to you.”

Derek gulps.

Lardo clenches her fist a few times. “It’s ok to miss people, Nurse. Even if you know where to find them. It’s ok to not like how things change.”

“Is it?” he retorts mirthlessly. “I wouldn’t know.”

“Hey,” her tone is stern but pleading and quiet. “I’m going to miss you too.”

He leans over his lawn chair. He tells himself it’s because he wants to remember this moment, and the look on her face, as she rips his heart out. They’d been dancing around each other all semester. They weren’t anything. They’d never been much to start with—just a student manager and one of the defense men.

She inhales sharply when his face is just an inch away from hers. His eyes hover over every soft curve and sharp angle of her face. Lardo’s frozen in place. There’s a tension buzzing between them. It’d been there for months, but now it was deafening. In three days, she’d be gone. In three days, she’d be free of hockey bros and childish things. She’d be free of any obligation to keep Derek Nurse together. He had to know if that was all they were.

Larissa, however, beats him to it. They’re kissing like they’re gasping for air; like they’re so oxygen deprived that they don’t remember how to think straight. Nursey’s arms snake down Lardo’s waist. Lardo’s hands work their way into the roots of his hair. She rubs his scalp as her tongue slips further into his mouth. Nursey finds himself getting lost in the way she molds herself around him, climbing into his lap seamlessly. She kisses him like they’re dancing—like their tongues are partners that are finally getting in synch.

She kisses him a little harder, he responds in kind. He gets lost in the way their hips meet each other languidly. Derek doesn’t want to pull away. He doesn’t want this moment to end. He’s pulling every word he never said into each and every movement. His heart is beating _I think I love you_ , _I could be in love with you_ , _I could see myself loving you forever._

They break apart panting. Her eyes don’t leave his, waiting for something to change. He pulls her in again. Larissa hums contently.

“Sometimes things change for the better,” she murmurs in his ear.

Yea, he thinks. Sometimes they do.

**Author's Note:**

> Fic title - Chasing Shadows by Santigold


End file.
